Chicken and dumplings is a dish which consists of a chicken cooked in water, with the resulting chicken broth being used to cook the dumplings by boiling. A dumpling in this context is a biscuit dough, which is a mixture of flour, shortening, and liquid (water, milk, buttermilk, or chicken stock). The dumplings are either formed into a ball, rolled out flat or dropped. The name of the dish is sometimes printed on menus as "chicken n dumplings", "chicken 'n' dumplings", or "chicken-n-dumplings". "Dumplings" is sometimes spelled "dumplins" in this context.